Fantasy
by WinnieTherPooh
Summary: Leo Fitz is dead, and with death comes strange nightmares. But is this death? Why is there still pain in death? One-shot set post 1x21
"So this is what death feels like." Fitz said aloud as he floated through a black fog. "It's not painful. A bit boring, perhaps, but not so bad." The thick silence was unnerving him, making him feel claustrophobic. It was getting creepy. "Jemma?" He called out. He could hear his echo return, a wailing disembodied ghost voice.

"Jeeeeeemmmmmmmaaaaa?"

Fitz shuddered. "Well, silence is reassuring. She made it out of the pod, then. She didn't die. So this was all for nothing."

"Nothing."

Echo. It clicked. There was an echo, which meant that his voice had bounced off of something. Which meant there was a wall to this place, which meant there was an end to it. Could he stand, perhaps, instead of floating? He lowered his foot, but his balance shifted as he met nothing but empty air. "But how to move, without walking?" He wondered aloud.

"Walking…. Walking…" The same echo called back to him, running a chill down his spine.

He moved his arms in front of him, like he was swimming. To his pleasure, he found that he moved forward. He could feel the fog under his fingertips, just like it was water. After moving ahead a good while, he called out again, to see if he was closer to the echo. Instead he got a mouthful of water and he was choking, gasping for air. He tried to kick his legs and get up, away. Now he could see a dim light above him. He fought upwards, moving frantically to get to the light. Did the dark water go on forever? His chest burned from lack of oxygen, and he began to fill faint as water crept into his lungs. He was so close to the top, and then his vision began to tunnel. With a final push, he forced himself to the surface. Gasping in the fresh air, Fitz floated on his back as he regained his breath. Then he began to tread water, looking for land. Something. Anything. The faint outline of a shore to his left motivated him. He began swimming towards it, only for the water to change into a vast desert where the waves were rises and swells of dunes. He became aware of the painful throb in his left arm. Did bones stay broken when you were dead? They must.

He slogged through the sand, violent sun beating down on his head. His head. It was aching, throbbing, fuzzy, like there was fluff in it. Winnie-the-Pooh. His mother reading to him while he fell asleep. Fluff.

Sun. Heat. Survival. His feet began to ache, and his shirt and jacket were broiling as they steam dried in the fierce sun. Taking off his shirt, he held it over his head with his right arm. It offered at least a little screen from the sun as he fought through the thick sand towards the shore he had seen from the ocean. Just when he got close, so close that he could see the vibrant colors of the trees, a wind sprang up, twisting sand around him, stinging his eyes, coating his mouth until he was choking and blinded. Still he stumbled forwards, hoping to cross the final yards into the cool of the shore. When the wind abated, he was sagging and worn out. To his dismay, the shore was as distant as ever.

"It's a bloody obstacle illusion. Optical illusion, that's it. You're a BLOODY OPTICAL ILLUSION." Fitz shouted at the trees, wondering why the words weren't coming as easily.

"Illusion." The distorted echo sang back to him.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Fitz screamed.

"Hell." It repeated back, the voice growing weird, strange, beginning to sound like—no.

There was wind again, it picked him up, hurled him down the side of a dune. But instead of sand he was rolling down a bank, no, like a cliff, covered in rocks and he was sure he was bruised all over, and he wouldn't last another second, and then he was in a creek at the bottom of a gorge. It was pretty, reminded him of the mountains. But how did he get there from the desert. He looked up the side of the gorge, and saw a puff of sand blow off the top. So this was under the desert? Bizarre. The water he was lying in soaked through his clothes, cooling and refreshing him. His arm was too painful for anything but lying in the stream, enjoying the feeling of the water washing off the sand.

Then suddenly there was a swelling roar behind him, and he was being swept downstream in a torrent of fast water. He gasped for air again, struggling to find even a moment with his head above water.

The water finally left him on the green shore of a gentle river. Fitz awkwardly crawled up the slop, his left arm dangling uselessly from his shoulder. At the top of the hill, it was cool, a light breeze sweeping the top of the green grass.

And there, waiting for him, was Jemma. "Fitz! Fitz!" She called, running towards him.

He tried to get up and run to her, but his brain was fluffy and his legs wouldn't work. "Oh Fitz." She reached him, helping him and throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh Fitz." She whispered into his ear.

And then she changed. She was Ward, her arms were his hands, choking ever bit of air from Fitz's lungs and preventing any from getting in. His vision began to spot, blinding colors flashed in front of him, he couldn't breathe—darkness.

After the darkness, there came light. A harsh, blinding light. The light that came from the overhead fluorescent lights in a hospital room. He was in a hospital room. There was an oxygen mask over his face. His arm wasn't hurting, but his brain still felt like fluff and fuzz. There were monitors, and IVs coming out of him everywhere, one of those strange clips on his finger, his arm was in a sling over his chest. He waited, waited for it all to change. This was another part of the nightmare that death was. It would end, change, and send him into another fantasy. It didn't change. He wasn't dead. He was alive. And there was something very wrong with him.


End file.
